1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic device, a malfunction determining method, and a computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, an image forming apparatus has been required to form a high-quality image. Especially in the production market, a demand for prevention of image degradation is increasing, and output of a defect image must be avoided as far as possible.
Accordingly, there is an increasing need for prediction of failure occurrence by monitoring an abnormal condition of a device due to aging degradation or a mechanical malfunction. The prediction of failure occurrence makes it possible to take proactive step, such as repair by a serviceperson or internal automatic correction and degeneracy operation, before a defect image is output.
As one of approaches for the prediction of failure occurrence, there is known a technology to sample encoder data of a motor at regular intervals and perform frequency analysis of the data, thereby detecting a sign of failure and identifying a failure location. For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-212719, to enable a failure diagnosis of a motor or a gear without adding a special failure detection circuit, a technology to make a failure diagnosis by comparison between a feature amount obtained by analyzing output of an encoder pulse and a reference feature amount has been proposed.
However, the conventional frequency analysis technology such as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-212719 is for detecting occurrence of malfunction of a drive source to which an encoder sensor outputs or a drive system with one or a plurality of encoder sensors with respect to one drive source or drive system. Therefore, when there is a plurality of drive sources subject to detection of a sign of occurrence of malfunction or occurrence of failure, as many encoder sensors as the drive sources subject to detection are required. Therefore, a device configuration becomes complex, which causes an increase in cost. This leads to relinquishment of a malfunction detecting function.